Objective: To analyze the main risk factors of hepatitis E virus infection.
Methods: Literatures published in China and abroad about the risk factors on the transmission of HEV were searched. HEV, risk factors, epidemiology and case-control were used as keywords to retrieve papers in Chinese literature databases including CNKI, Wanfang and SinoMed databases. The same strategy was used to retrieve English papers in English literature database including EBSCO and PubMed databases, supplemented by literature tracing method. Time range was from January 1994 to December 2012. A total of 258 papers were collected. Stata 11.0 software was used to calculate combined odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence internals (CI).
Results: A total of 21 studies was included in this Meta-analysis, which contained 3566 cases and 14 724 controls. The results of univariate analysis including OR (95%CI) : Dining out: 2.13 (1.62-2.81), consumption of aquatic products: 2.21 (1.76-3.31), unboiled water: 2.04 (1.13-3.71), not washing hands before meals:1.72 (1.07-2.77), common health facilities: 2.53(1.73-3.70), touching animals:2.00 (1.58-2.52), consumption of contaminated food:1.56 (1.18-2.05), contacting with patients: 2.33 (1.92-2.83), drinking alcohol: 2.56 (1.42-4.63) and gender (male):1.64 (1.15-2.33). The results of multivariate analysis including OR (95%CI) : Dining out: 2.04 (1.68-2.48), consumption of aquatic products: 2.31(1.70-3.15), unboiled water: 1.43 (1.10-1.85), not washing hands before meals: 2.01 (1.46-2.77), common health facilities: 2.28 (1.48-3.51), consumption of contaminated food: 2.16 (2.06-2.26), touching animals: 2.17 (1.55-3.04), contacting with patients: 2.32 (1.68-3.21), drinking alcohol: 1.66 (1.31-2.10) and gender (male): 1.67 (1.46-1.92).
Conclusion: The independent risk factors of HEV infection were dining out, consumption of aquatic products, unboiled water, not washing hands before meals, common health facilities, touching animals, consumption of contaminated food, contacting with patients, drinking alcohol and gender (male).